“Oh, m’lady,” the servant girl began, understanding now that this regal woman had her eyes set on William. Smartly, she lowered her glance before proceeding to say, “Every woman here would wish themselves his wife, but the lovely Miss Anne has been promised that honour.”

  It was at this point, the She finally spoke, sounding as if she had been born in the colonies. “He’s married?”

  No one in the room noticed the new drawl to the She’s words. They were too busy picking their men.

  “No, m’lady. But they are betrothed—has been since they were children.”

  The servant girl, having a new subject, started up again, tumbling more words from her mouth. She described Miss Anne as young, beautiful, accomplished, and a favourite of the colonists, but most of all, pure, as pure as a woman could be.

  At the word “pure”, the She regained her smile. “You silly girl,” she drawled. “A man who has the fastest stallion, the largest parcel of land, and the richest crop does not want the purest woman.”

  This the other women did hear and a backdrop of gasps followed the She’s words. The other women forgot the men and joined in on their favourite pastime, judging another.

  The She cared not. She turned back to the window and then waited until William Cain lifted his head and saw her. She raised her hand to her lips and blew him a kiss that was helped along by those special senses. Her kiss floated on the wind, and she knew the moment his lips burned with her promise for he stepped back, his eyes wide, and lifted a gloved hand to his mouth.

  The She did not say a word but whispered in William’s mind, “You are mine,” using her new Southern accent.

  His nod was imperceptible to those men milling around him, those hopeful men waiting to be acknowledged by Master William Cain. Those men did not realize how lucky they were to not be chosen by the She. Or perhaps it was the She that was unlucky, for William Cain and his magnolia tree would eventually bind her life in the ground. But first, there would be love.

  CHAPTER 6: GAZELLE TRIPPING

  ~

  STILL WARM FROM ANGUS’ ATTENTIONS, I reminded myself that Patrick had said, “one week” of celibacy and my symptoms would disappear. He had explained it as some sort of developmental milestone, one last chance to train my brain. According to him, every time I slept around, disrespected myself, or gave into violent impulses, I was blazing a trail to crazy-land. If I created too many ice slopes for my mental toboggan, I’d be crazy forever.

  With a reluctant sigh, I slipped back into my chair and gave Lene a dirty look because she was having way too much fun flirting.

  Lennox returned and sat beside me. He was trying to catch my eye by leaning forward on the table into my frame of vision. I sulked and fiddled with my empty beer.

  “If ye gie tired of Angus, Ah’ll be happy tae scratch ‘at itch fur ye.”

  The offer jolted my seductive organs up another notch to sultry and slick. I turned and took a good look at him. His skin was so fair, it was almost translucent, the veins creating blue shadow lines at his temples. It was an inviting liquid map, though which I could see the throb of his engine, and I wanted to stroke and prod the blood moving beneath his skin. As Lennox met my heated glance, the soft tissue beneath my tongue picked up the quickening of his heart’s pace.

  Enthralled, I looked away to better concentrate on following his heart beats. Then, I tracked my heart’s rhythm playing next to his. It was a surreal counterbalanced symphony of two life-drums.

  Angus said something to the waitress behind me, and they laughed together. But to me, his voice sounded hollow and dull at the edges as if he were standing at the end of a long culvert.

  My hands blindly peeled the Molson Canadian sticker off my beer bottle, and carefully folded it six times.

  Lennox spoke again. “Ah ken yer kind of woman, an’ Ah kin what ye need.”

  His pulse raced mine to an inescapable finish line.

  I dropped the folded paper, then looked at the silver scales spattered on my palm from the dissolving label. Lennox shifted towards me in his chair, his hand moving into my space on the table. He was gazing at my face, speaking softly, but I didn’t catch the words.

  My attention was on the little rips of silver label paper on my palm. The pieces began to move in spasmodic jerks across my skin, timed to the beat of Lennox’s core. The stop motion lurches drew the pieces together seamlessly to form a picture of a metallic heart with arching arteries. My mouth dropped open. I closed it and blinked.

  Like an image viewed through the changing focus of a camera, the silver blurred and a reflection of my eyes became clear. So clear, I watched black bleed like ink from the brown of my irises into the whites, spilling night to the edges of my eyelids.

  Lennox’s nose brushed aside my curls. “What dae ye say, lassie,” he whispered hotly into my ear.

  I turned, fixing him with my black stare and his heart leapt in rhythm, jumping over my ever-quickening beats. I caught the sound like a lion catches a gazelle, tripping it by the hind legs until it falls to struggle in the dust. His mouth popped open as his heart’s contraction was locked in place.

  An excited gasp escaped my mouth to kick raggedly against my lips. I waited for my heart’s pattern, and then I dropped his beat onto mine creating a moment of perfect synchrony.

  He struck his chest with his hand and started to choke.

  Sound returned in an overwhelming crescendo of jukebox tunes, talking, laughing, and the blond man’s thick-tongued gags.

  “Chokin’ on yer drink again, Lennox,” Duncan interrupted Lene to ask.

  Colin was also watching, “Awee bit too strong is it?”

  I watched Lennox’s struggles with fascination. His hacks tugged deep within me, triggering contractions in muscles made for wrapping. Squeezing my thighs together, I pressed my wet underwear against my throbbing flesh.

  I could sense Angus behind me, waiting. I didn’t want to stop watching Lennox struggle, but it was Angus that I required, wasn’t it?

  Suddlenly, I felt sick. I rubbed at my eyes. My lips tasted like cigarette tar when I licked them.

  “Ur ye all right, mukker?” Angus leaned past me and hammered his friend on the back, laughing with the rest.

  Lennox took a shaky breath and murmured something to Angus. His face and neck were red, the skin of his neck pimpled above his collar. His lips had taken on a bluish tinge. Somebody passed him a whiskey, but it slopped in his trembling hand.

  “Och! Don’t waste it,” Colin yelped.

  Lennox pressed his hand to his chest and kept his bulging eyes averted from mine.

  “He’s fated tae choke tae death, that one.”

  Death.

  Cold realization of what I had just done washed over me. All the raw excitement of playing with Lennox dissolved as his shaking hand spilled more whiskey on the table.

  Had I really just done that to him? Or maybe I hadn’t. Maybe it was just a coincidence, and Lennox had choked on his beer.

  “You’re talking about fate, again.” I accused.

  Angus settled back into his seat, chuckling under his breath.

  I turned, intent on watching his expression. “Who says it wasn’t manipulation?”

  “Maybe it was destiny!” His voice boomed, and the others grew silent.

  All eyes turned to Angus as Lennox finally stopped coughing.

  “How is it destiny to …” I hesitated, not knowing how to describe what had just happened.

  “Go on,” he ordered.

  “…to choke on your own spit?” I ended on a haughty note.

  Lennox started to say something, but Angus’ loud “Shhhh!” stopped him.

  Angus leaned in, putting his hand on the arm of my chair. “Destiny is the force that propels us through life, lass.”

  He smiled, distracting me, then clutched my hand. I kept it closed tight, hiding the Molson label heart that had formed on my palm.

  “Fate is the guide that helps us make our choices. Free will is the deception.”

  The others nodded and made noises of agreement. His eyes never left mine, as his fingers tried to gently pry my hand open.

  “You don’t really believe that, do you?”

  I squeezed my hand shut over his thumb, trapping it within my clasp.

  “Don’t ye believe we were fated to meet, tonight?” He caressed the side of my hand with his thumb.

  “Oh puh-lease.”

  I tried to pull my hand away. His fingers clamped down on my knuckles. The waitress put two beers onto the table. Lennox cleared his throat. I stared at the booze thirstily.

  Angus reluctantly released me. I slid my hand into my lap, keeping my palm facing down. He twisted off the bottle caps and passed a beer my way. Tipping his up, he drank deeply.

  I tried to touch Angus’ heartbeat, as I had done to Lennox. If I could do it again, then it would be proof of another ability—a ninth sense. And, if I could control the beating of Angus’ heart, it would be proof I was getting worse, or better, depending...

  I searched for the rhythm of his heartbeats in the space between us. The hum of the dim lights became dominant in my mind. I peeled it away as insignificant. I peeled all the sounds, shredding the ambiance until I could hear a urinal leaking down the rust-stained wall in the men’s washroom. Yet, try as I might, I couldn’t hear Angus’ heart.

  When I lifted my head from his chest, Angus was watching me with a grim expression. He quickly adjusted his features into a charming smile.

  “Where are you from?” I asked, not meaning to sound so accusing.

  “Can’t ye guess?”

  “You’re from across the sea.” I realized I had just quoted my mother’s letter. “I know that much.”

  “A prize for the lady!” he shouted, and the others cheered.

  I blushed at the attention. Why was I in the spotlight? What was going on?

  “Why are you here?”

  “Do I need a reason to visit the friendly and welcoming country of Canada?”

  “No, but it’s a little unusual to find a group of men like you guys in the local bar, that’s all.”

  Angus leaned passed me and shoved at Lennox, “Did ye hear that, Lennox? She thinks we’re unusual.”

  I cast an innocent look around the table at the others. “I never said that.”

  Lene pointed at the bathroom with an angry jab while she yanked on Duncan’s coat trying to get his mouth back on hers. But he was looking at me. They were all looking at me, listening in on Angus and me.

  Angus grabbed my left hand off my lap, and before I could stop him, he flipped it over to look at my palm.

  I looked at his tilted head with dread, then when he didn’t react, I looked at my palm.

  A chuckle of relief burst out of me.

  The silver heart was gone. There were no flakes of Molson label stuck to my skin like fish scales. It had been a delusion, a figment of my deranged imagination.

  “In mah family, we tease each other.” He rubbed his thumb in a circle on my skin. “And yoo’re an easy one tae tease, lass.”

  The doctor had kept telling me I was delusional. Everything I experienced felt like it was all real, but the metallic heart was gone. This proved it. I didn’t have the power to kill people by stopping their hearts. I had never had any power. I was just nuts.

  “What about ye?” Angus asked, completely unaware of my internal struggles.

  I quickly looked up from my hand. “What?”

  “What dae yer people dae?”

  “My people…”

  What would I say?

  My mom does shock treatment and my dad … it probably isn’t “what” he’s doing, but “who” he’s doing.

  It was time for some little white lies.

  “Oh, I come from good people if that’s what you’re wondering.”

  “Duncan,” Angus shouted across the table. “Ah think Aam gettin’ roped into a proposal.”

  “What?” I screeched and started to stand up. The others burst into laughter, and Colin slapped Angus on the back, offering to be his best man.

  Angus gently pulled me back into my seat.

  I shook my head at him. “This is some sort of Scottish humour thing, isn’t it?”

  He leaned in closer and lowered his voice. “This is some sort of thing, nae doubt.”

  I let that dreamy line sink in, while he gave me his full and committed attention.

  Angus put his elbow on his knee and moved in close to me to whisper. “Now we’ve met proper-like, Ah think it’s time to get down to some serious drinkin”.

  The last word rolled off his tongue, and I became very interested in his ability to flick the tip with such speed. One of the men yelled for whiskey. I lifted my head to take my cue from Lene, but she and Duncan were trying to swallow each other’s tongues.

  Party on, then.

  “Fated or nae,” Angus held up his bottle, “tae a night we won’t soon forget.”

  The group’s laughter echoed off the stained, plaster ceiling. I raised my beer, but before I clinked the bottles together, I challenged him. “You think you’re a man I won’t forget?”

  “Ah’m nae any man ye’ve met before.”

  “Praise be,” I smirked, “the others haven’t been worth spit.”

  Then the whiskey came, and I was taken by the tawny light, forgetting to worry about my ‘crazy’.

  After what I had done to Lennox, I should have gone home and hidden until I had better control, but as the night wore on, I forgot about everything except muscular thighs, pleasure hidden behind metal zippers, and the sharp burn of hard liquor.

  CHAPTER 7: TONGUE TWISTED TRUTHS

  ~

  LENNOX WAS STANDING BY THE wall between the washrooms and our table, and he was trying to get Angus’ attention. At first I ignored him, and kept Angus turned my way. Then one of the other guys let Angus know he was wanted.

  “Dorn’t miss me,” he grinned as he got up.

  I openly ravished his body with my eyes. Angus was well over six feet and built thick with wide shoulders and hips topping muscular thighs. He wasn’t a man who could be knocked down easily and that excited me. The old floorboards creaked under his boots as he made his way over to Lennox.

  I tore my eyes from his shoulders and dropped my glance to my palm where the silver heart had been. My lifeline was still unbroken by label bits.

  I was always struck by the length of my lifeline. It ran over the edge of my palm, looping around the base of my thumb. My destiny line was extra-long too, stabbing up through the heart and brain lines, shattering them into segments beneath my middle finger.

  A tingle at the back of my neck drew my attention to Lennox who was casting furtive glances my way, while he spoke to the big man.

  “He has nothing to tell,” I whispered to myself.

  Lennox looked as terrified as he had when he had met my eyes before the choking started.

  Angus slapped Lennox on the back and laughed out loud. Lennox shot another wary glance over Angus’ shoulder at me, his face stricken with something close to guilt.

  I stared at Lennox’s mouth as it moved over the words he was spilling into the air.

  Mumble…mumble and then I could read his lips. “…If ye dorn’t turn ‘er, ye could end th’ curse forever. Ye could free us from uir bonds, Angus.”

  His hand clutched the Scotsman’s muscular forearm with a grip that left white marks on Angus’ skin. I couldn’t see Angus’ mouth, but now I had their conversation, I could hear it.

  “Listen tae me cousin. We ur here tae dae a job. If ye can’t handle that, ye have tae return home.”

  “But Angus, if ye release ‘er, think whit she will dae tae folk. Dae ye want ‘at oan yer conscience?”

  “Lene, what’s takin’ sae long?” Duncan’s voice shouted on my left, shattering my concentration and just about deafening me.

  Lene was no longer seated beside Duncan. With a feeling of deja vu, I turned in the direction of his frustrated glance.

  Damn! Lene was on the phone. I staggered drunkenly when I jumped up, but regained my balance and moved to intercept Lene’s call.

  As I passed the men, I heard Lennox say, “Ah’ll not dae it!”

  It was a strange comment, and maybe one a girl in a bar should pay attention to, but I didn’t have time to think about what he meant. Lene saw me coming and turned her back, huddling over the phone piece.

  “Who are you talking to?” I hissed at the back of her head, as if I didn’t already know.

  Then my paranoia kicked in. “What are they saying about me?”

  She waved me away, sticking a finger into her other ear.

  My arrival didn’t make her miss a beat in her sentence. “I just got off work, Reg.”

  My boozed-up brain revved into high gear when I heard the “wife-beater’s” name. I tapped Lene’s shoulder and when she turned to face me, a finger to her lips, I grimaced and shook my head at her, knowing better than to talk. If the number one loser in her life heard me in the background, Lene would pay later. He hated my guts, and the feeling was mutual.

  “What are you doing?” I mouthed the words, exaggerating my expression of disbelief.

  “Listen, I was thinking maybe we could have a drink and talk it out.” Her chin trembled against the plastic mouth piece.

  I shook my head side to side in an exaggerated “no”.

  He was shouting so loudly; I could easily hear him even without my special senses.

  “I didn’t mean it…” She turned away again, but not before I saw her tears. “Please, Reg, just give me another chance.”

 

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